Hahaha…are you getting soft Dave. Asking for Board support. Of course he would have selected Pollard. His mistake was not selecting a Pollard who had a very high chance of being fit and ready for the knockouts.
Hahaha…are you getting soft Dave. Asking for Board support. Of course he would have selected Pollard. His mistake was not selecting a Pollard who had a very high chance of being fit and ready for the knockouts.
Yes he would have selected Pollard. But it was a tremendous mistake not picking him in the beginning, because Pollard was over his injury and was already Training for a week.
I think Erasmus knew this the moment he left without Pollard. I also think he was sweating knowing that he couldn’t bring him to France, unless someone got injured. Then luckily for him Marx got injured and Pollard was on the plane.
Would we have won WC 23 without Pollard? I doubt it.
Not really Moz it’s tongue in cheek shit
"His mistake was not selecting a Pollard who had a very high chance of being fit and ready for the knockouts."
Pollard was not injured anymore. He was already training for a week when the squad left without him. The only thing he wasn’t, was completely match fit.
But not a good enough reason leaving your almost ready Star Flyhalf at Home. Which ever way you try and spin it, these are the facts.
The squad had to be announced weeks before they left...there was reason behind the decision.
Bullshit the Boks have a selection policy in place which Pollard did not come close to meeting having played no rugby in months
Good on Rassie for adhering to the policy and not undermining the system in the process
Yes policy and System is there, but there is no Rule like Moz said that prevents you from taking a not match fit player with.
Doesn’t really matter now because we won and it all worked out good. But it’s Moerse Luck that it did work out.
This thead and another one started on the2023 RWC Pollard is based on BS. The story that Pollad played a club match a week before the start of the WC is proving NOTHING sice he WC plaer lists were sbmtted months before (End May 2023) and at the time of submission Polard as not playin ay rugby for our months and there was no guarantee he would be fit toplay by the RWC took place. If a player was on the originl squad list and then .could not played there was in terms of WRC rules no replacemnt is allowed.
We would not have won wothout Pollard .. end of. It was a huge tactical mistake even if he were carrying a niggle he was on the path to full recovery within a couple of weeks. After all we took to 50min son of the nation Kolisi. He should have taken 3 9's and Pollard. We could then have replaced Marx with another forward, not doing so was a huge gamble but the only way he could overcome his mistake.
I fully support Rassie but this non selection was a brain fart!
I find it hard to believe that the rugby astute Rassie would have consciously left off a match ready and fit Pollard from his RWC squad. Coaches make some strange selections and non selections but.......
"Yes policy and System is there, but there is no Rule like Moz said that prevents you from taking a not match fit player with."
Yes there isn't, but there is a rule preventing you from replacing a player in your RWC who was injured prior to squad announcement...Moz's ignorance of such rule is no excuse for Rassie to ignore it...and SA Rugby probably has protocols wrt picking injured players regardless of Rassie's wishes...poor attemt at Rassie-bashing...
Why 4 Nines ? 
Who knows?...but what has that got to do with Pollard's omission due to injury?
Wow there are some thick pricks on here
So there is a selection policy in place within the Bok setup that requires a player to pass certain fitness protocols including having actually played a game of rugby before being eligible for selection and some fools are saying Rassie should have ignored this policy and selected the untested Pollard in the WC squad anyway
How fucking stupid are you lot?
My ignorance of a rule nobody can find anywhere, is hardly persuasive. The point is we could have taken Pollard regardless of whether he could be replaced or not. As BokBF points out leaving it up to an injury, meant that injured player couldn’t be replaced….in this case the hooker. The very fact Dave seizes on to excuse our weak performance against 7 man NZ.
Logically one can only assume Rasmus thought Pollard wasn’t needed.
What part of the Bok selection policy are you missing Moz?
Draad honestly that’s hardly bashing….and the actual policy is not at fault, it’s Rassie making a wrong decision in not putting the trust in Pollard,s recovery and readiness.
And as it turned out, Pollard proved him wrong and was eventually the Catalyst that made it happen for us in WC 23.
Fuck me how stupid are you Mpower seriously?
Please correct the record Draad or produce the rule, ChatGTP can’t find it.
OK fair...Chat GPT is a good enough source. I will accept that until I see something more reliable...the Supersport.com article I posted was wrong...the pundits I recalled making these assertions were also wrong...I was mislead by supposed experts...so given these facts, I think Rassie was then also wrong not including Pollard...unless protocol prevented him from including Pollard, but in the absence of proof of such protocol, I accept that it was stupid not including him...I will definitely ask Rassie why, if I ever get the opportunity.
Just ask yurself a question -why could Meyer not replace Alberts and De Villiers in the 2015 WRC. The reasons were the same. They could not be replaced because World Rugby rules did t allow for such replcements. None of them played any rugb for months by the time the player lists was submitted to WR and that showed the real impact of that rule/
In any event - he 2023 RWC is gone - and he attacks on Ersmus was never sopped by his site detracters - which in iself is BS. spreading - so why argue about nothing on site?
Maaik...it is what it is.
Well here's the reasoning behind 4 scrumhalves straight from the horses' mouths:
"Draad honestly that’s hardly bashing….and the actual policy is not at fault, it’s Rassie making a wrong decision in not putting the trust in Pollard,s recovery and readiness.
And as it turned out, Pollard proved him wrong and was eventually the Catalyst that made it happen for us in WC 23."
We don't know exactly who's call it was and what the reasoning was, but as director of rugby Rassie should probably take the responsibility...to his credit, he included him as soon as the opportunity arose...what would have happened if Marx didn't get injured?...who knows?
"Well here's the reasoning behind 4 scrumhalves straight from the horses' mouths"
Excellent tactical processes, I can't fault their logic in why they did that..... especially as they even went into the history of each player's ability whilst playing rugby early in their careers, to determine which positions they could cover, if needed.
Rassie likes to think outside the box and mislead the opposition. He watched the ABs bending the rules on the field for years, and I think he decided that he would bend the rules as much as he could too. Hence the waterboy stuff, Sauron lights, etc.
Not it’s a lot simpler than that - Pollard had not played a game of rugby in months before the WC so hence not being originally selected - same applied to Am
It’s that simple
"And if Marx didn't injure himself, then Rassie would have had to cheat to get Pollard into the squad...provided of course that nobody else injured themselves."
Ja, that bothers me too.
There was absolutely no logic in having 4 scrumhalves it was a stupid call
Passing it off as some could play 10 is bullshit
"then Rassie would have had to cheat to get Pollard into the squad"
I think if most people are very honest, this has been in the back of everyone's minds since the Marx injury..... what would Rassie have done, if Marx did not get injured, and he stayed...... because no ways would Rassie fake a Marx injury even if he did want to cheat and get Pollard back, so could someone else have just become "injured"... if nobody else legitimately got injured before the big games.
We will never know
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